


the tell

by zangari



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Character Study, boop boop it's another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 20:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16750729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zangari/pseuds/zangari
Summary: they talk like nothing is wrong, because sometimes nothing has to be when there’s twice as much to worry about tomorrow. they’ll do what they were born to do, and talk like that’s anything but exhausting. (or: two old drabbles i glued together to make one (1) longer drabble.)





	the tell

four million people let the sun set on his street, and he doesn’t feel that weight. maybe that was harder to manage at first. maybe, that night, there was enough fear in him to fill the sky back up with its safe and hazy expanse, like the grey indifference four million could. it didn’t. and anyway, the number can’t be grasped. it’s five million and a half now, or was before (if you’re wondering), and you’re a fraction of a percent in it, here, when it’s all streetlamps and headlights and puddles. we’re no different.

‘i don’t know why—’ pursed lips and a sound as he shakes his head. they’re different on the fundamental level that decides a greater good. he forgets, but it’s the remembering that curbs his pace.

there’s something else to be afraid of here. it’s not her, and not even the vastness of that vow to humanity, being and owing and defining. like— that’s a damn big number. cosmic enough to lose track of while the small things possess. like one day, say it’s just him in the sea of six million. what then? say it’s seven million and the quiet sets into his bones and his meaningless thoughts won’t be shared with anyone but himself. she’ll be around, but too different, and only when he’s done his good deeds for the day; tried to fill the hole in his city again, whatever it is next. after all, she’s trapped human walking deity and he’s salvaging what he can of something that can’t be perceived, not even halfway.

he stops altogether to check his pockets then sighs an apology, catches up. the funny thing about all of this, he thinks, is that he feels most himself in relation to her. that is, if she and her thousand selves could exist apart for a minute, in the way he just forgets she won’t. they talk like nothing is wrong, because sometimes nothing has to be when there’s twice as much to worry about tomorrow. they’ll do what they were born to do, and talk like that’s anything but exhausting.

he can't tell her he’s exhausted.

he can't say much at all this time. 

when he was younger, strangers would often be the ones to kick at the truth with their heavy feet: some wise old man came back as that girl navigating the ice, some thief came back as that pigeon-rat to learn his lesson, ‘sometimes you’ve got to look harder; the dead stick around.’ he had clung to skepticism for as long as life allowed though, as anyone’s sense would say that a little girl has one shot like everyone else has, and thieves don’t have the sense, and parents aren’t given a choice.

anyway, something had to break. someone had to step too hard, make him doubt, strike some fear. people pass by and life sticks around, or she will, or someone has to. to the heart, there’s the comfort. it doesn’t much help when her eyes, casting over a shuffling deck, are implying something else. a departure’s still a departure. it begs to be talked about or fought over, but dead isn’t the point. forget implications – there’s the comfort again, making him wonder (again) how anyone could have it easy when she’s the avatar and he’s reaching for warmth he can’t drum up on his own.

anyway. it’s another day that she could have come back as someone else, and he’s keeping count. five, six– 'seven, and seven,' and anyway, they’re playing another game of cards on his floor. like the promise of another sunrise spilling onto the streets, life sticks around. 'i won't go easy on you this time.'


End file.
